Saturday, August 29, 2015

The Dictator 2012 8+ out of 10 (Politically Incorrect and I love it)


The Dictator  2012   8+ out of 10

It took me awhile to get around to seeing The Dictator starring Sasha Baron Cohen of  Borat fame, but I truly enjoyed it once I did. We life in a overly sensitive, politically correct society.  A Society where everybody thinks they have been bullied and everyone is offended and hurt by everything that is said.   If anybody says anything we don't like these days the lynch mob social media demands an apology.  Our current world suppresses freedom of speech in favor of the victim mentality.   This movie was a refreshing breath of fresh air where jokes were allowed to be jokes for the sake of being funny (whether they offended someone or not).   It is totally politically incorrect and makes no apologies for its jokes in a world where comedians have to apologize daily for their material.   The Dictator follows the story of a Saddam Hussein type leader from a make believe Middle Eastern country as he makes his way to America to give a speech at the United Nations.  He is double crossed by his underlings and is mistaken for an average immigrant.  It is like Coming to America if Eddie Murphy's character had been an asshole.  

The movie takes aim and makes fun of everything and anything.  It proves that you can make fun of even the most taboo and serious subjects.  I'm sure the average person would be extremely offended by certain scenes and subject matter in this movie.  There were certain scenes that even made me uncomfortable, but that is fine because we should be uncomfortable every once in awhile.  I personally think that we should be able to laugh and joke about serious subjects.  Laughter is meant to heal. Laughter is meant to give us a break from the crap that happens around us.  I think Sasha Baron Cohen did an excellent job in making uncomfortable subjects funny in this film.    I would recommend this you anyone that loved Borat or Bruno and anyone that has a thick enough skin to not be offended easily. 
  If you are easily offended -- then this isn't the movie for you.  If not enjoy one of the few moments when you aren't stuck in the political correct bubble that society is cramming us into.








Sunday, August 9, 2015

Ant-Man 2015 9 out of 10


Ant-Man 2015 9 out of 10

Ant-Man seemed like a really a odd choice -when Marvel/Disney 
 announced it as the final movie in what it is calling its Phase two films.  Excuse the pun --but it seemed like such a small movie to followup after the Avengers: Age of Ultron.   Ant-Man on paper just seems like a minor Marvel character that wouldn't really be that interesting and I think the general public saw him as such sense the box office was a lot smaller for this pint sized hero.  I got excited to see the film the same way I got excited for Guardians by attending  a 4-D sneak peek at the Disneyland resort.   Here is a look at my thoughts from the sneak peek and the Ant-Man costume that was on display.

http://braddisneylandblog.blogspot.com/2015/07/ant-man-sneak-peek-at-dca.html

Ant-Man the movie:
The movie itself was a fantastic action adventure comedy.  Ant-Man is a lot more of a bad-ass than you would think.  The movie tells the story of how a thief Scott Lang (played by Paul Rudd) gets entangled with inventor Hank Pym (played by Michael Douglas) who gives him a chance at redemption to become the hero his daughter already sees him as.   It is an origin story for this character that will become an Avenger in the upcoming next Avengers movie that shows how he learns to use the Ant-man suit and helps to basically save the world from Hank's former protege that plans to sell the technology --he kept hidden from the world for years.   His protege Darren Cross (aka The Yellow Jacket) has just re-invented the technology and is going to sell it to Hydra and so Hank Pym enlists and trains Scott to be the Ant-Man in order to stop him.  The plot was well crafted for an origin story and filled with just the right amount of action and comedy. 

Special Effects:
This movie took shrinking to the next level.  We are no longer in the days of characters standing next to ridiculous over sized props like Lily Tomlin in the Incredible Shrinking Women.

 Although there is a great scene at the end of the film with an oversized prop used to get a laugh.   The special effects effectively shrink the character into an amazing world.

The Cast:
The cast was excellent.  Paul Rudd was a great choice for Ant-Man.  He brought just the right mix of humor and action hero to his starring role.  Michael Douglas was excellent as usual.  He still has it after all these years in his role as Hank Pym (the original Ant-Man).   I almost wish they could go back and time and see his earlier adventures as the Ant-Man.  It seems the movie business could actually do this now, since the scene at the beginning of the film was able to effectively de-age him to his younger self to play a scene between him Howard Stark/ and Peggy Carter from 1989.  It was like what they did with Jeff Bridges in Tron Legacy --but improved.    The actor that stole the movie however was Michael Pena as Luis.  Luis was  Scott's ex cell mate from prison and  every time Luis had something to say in the movie he was an absolute highlight.   I'd watch the adventures of Luis the criminal if it was turned into a TV show.

How it Connects to Marvel's Phase 3:
As I mentioned Ant-Man will be joining the Avengers -so this movie was basically an interesting way to introduce his character to the MCU.  He will be a part Captain America: Civil War which comes out next year (and has so many people in it it may as well be the next Avengers movie).   The opening scene shows that Hank Pym had a previous a connection to SHIELD and didn't trust Stark which will probably play directly into the next film.  Ant-Man encounters the Falcon during the film which will probably lead into Captain America directly as well--because at the end of the movie the Falcon is looking for Ant-Man before the end credits and mentions him to Captain America in a post credit scene.  I loved Ant-Man a lot more than I expected to when it was first announced and I'm excited to see him join the Avengers in this cool fun MCU that Disney/Marvel has created.



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Sunday, August 2, 2015

Zombie Shark 2015 3 out of 10


Zombie Shark 2015  3 out of 10

Zombie Shark was a boring bad shark movie.  It had some decent camera shots here and there--but was just dull as a whole.  Some friends decide to go to an vacation island for the weekend and end up getting attacked by sharks that are basically zombies.  Other than the catchy name of Zombie Shark --they really don't act or behave any different than regular sharks,  unless you count the fact that when they appear to be dead on the beach --they are actually just resting.  This movie tries to have serious dialogue scenes featuring the characters in the film that occasionally bring the movie to a grinding halt.  If you are making a movie called Zombie Shark --long character development scenes with characters talking about why their mom likes the younger sister better are just boring time wasting scenes that the audience could care less about. 
   The worst part of the movie is Jason London's "I don't really seem to care I'm in a movie acting."   He looked like a boring office worker --just showing up on Monday morning that hasn't had his coffee yet.  He brought this lackluster effort into every dull scene that he was in.  There are no laughs in Zombie Shark and even when the sharks start biting people and turning them into zombies there is really never any true tension in the film.     My opinion is to skip Zombie Shark and not be fooled by it's catchy title.   There are so many better bad shark movies to enjoy.

Here is my updated list that includes all 6 new 2015 bad shark movies that aired during Sharknado Week on Syfy channel




Here is a Fan Made Trailer for Zombie Shark





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